


Sands of Time

by Diamond_Raven



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes-centric, Drunk Kissing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Healing, M/M, Post-Captain America: The First Avenger, poor drunken decisions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-05 08:59:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16364852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diamond_Raven/pseuds/Diamond_Raven
Summary: When SHIELD uncovers Hydra’s betrayal a decade earlier, a team finds Bucky in cryostasis in an abandoned bunker. He wakes up a decade before Steve is found.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please ignore any inaccuracies regarding my portrayal of the military in this fic. Thank you!
> 
> I love comments in any size, shape or form and I love chatting with readers, so it means the world to me if you took the time to write me a comment if you enjoy the story!

Keeping a tight grip on her gun, Denisha creeps through the abandoned office room, sweeping the area around her with her gun and the flashlight attached to it. The room is dark, but there’s enough ambient light for her to see that it’s full of dust-covered desks, chairs and old typewriters.

Her ear piece squawks to life in her ear. “Agent Johnson, status report.”

Denisha finishes her sweep, confident that she’s alone in the room. Lowering her gun, she responds. “Nothing but dust, Agent Coulson.” Wandering closer to one of the desks, she inspects the old typewriter on it. “Dust and typewriters. Should I poke around and see what else I can—”

Just then, the breathless voice of her partner interrupts. “Agent Coulson? I found something. Johnson, get over here. Sector B.”

Raising her gun, Denisha hurries out of the room and heads to where she knows Tina is. Rounding the corner and carefully checking the area for anything suspicious, she reaches the room Tina was clearing. There’s nothing but silence, which could be a good or a bad sign. “I’m just outside the room. What’s going on?”

“It’s—it’s fine. No hostiles. Just…just get in here. I don’t even know what I’m looking at.”

Keeping her gun up, Denisha steps into the room. There’s a large chair in the center of it and small wheeled trays surround it, covered in medical equipment.

Tina has her gun up and it’s trained on a large cylindrical tube that’s in the corner of the room.

Denisha has no idea why the cylinder is causing Tina such concern. The device has a few slowly blinking lights on it and except for a low, electrical hum, there aren’t any worrying noises coming from it. But Tina seems freaked out by it.

“Agents, I need an update,” Agent Coulson snaps in Denisha’s ear. He sounds annoyed, but she knows he’s actually worried sick. Tina and Denisha had been two of Agent Coulson’s first rookies and he’s always had a special soft spot when overseeing his former rookies in the field.

Tina keeps her gun trained on the cylinder while she responds. “It’s some type of device, shaped like a cylinder. I have no idea what it is, sir.”

“Is it functioning, Agent Westin?”

“Yeah, I—I think so. But that’s not why I’m concerned.”

“Spit it out, Westin.”

“There’s—there’s a man inside the tube.”

Denisha gapes at Tina and then the cylinder.

But Agent Coulson doesn’t skip a beat. “Is the situation contained?”

“He’s unconscious, sir. Or he might be dead, I have no idea.”

Keeping her gun on the tube, Denisha cautiously steps forward, wanting to confirm what Tina saw. They’ve come across bodies in these abandoned Hydra bunkers before. After some SHIELD agents had stumbled across Hydra’s betrayal a year ago, things had moved so quickly that Hydra agents had scattered left, right and center and many had panicked so badly that they’d committed suicide rather than attempt to run. Denisha’s grown used to coming across decomposed bodies in bunkers like this.

But finding a body in a tube would be new.

Stepping up to the cylindrical device, she keeps her gun trained on it and cautiously peers through the foggy glass. Up close, she can tell the glass is covered in ice crystals, not fog. And once her eyes have adjusted to the darkness within the tube, she can finally make out what Tina had seen and her heart jumps in her chest.

Covered in a thin layer of ice crystals, the pale face of a man stares back at her, his eyes closed in either death or frozen sleep.

*             *             *

“You wanted to see me, Dr. B?”

Dr. Bellamy glances up from his desk and gives Bucky that small smile of his. It always makes his face look strange, as if he wasn’t born with the ability to smile naturally, but after having spent months with the man, Bucky would rather take Dr. Bellamy’s small smiles than the fake ones constantly being directed his way by people who are either scared of him or think he’s some weird specimen.

Dr. Bellamy has been one of the only people at the rehabilitation center who hasn’t treated Bucky like he’s made out of glass or like he’s a small child. His smiles have to be earned, and Bucky’s proud that he’s been earning quite a few of them in recent months.

“Come in and have a seat, Sergeant.”

Bucky leans the door shut and sits down in his usual chair, waiting for Dr. Bellamy to sit in the chair opposite him.

Once he’s sitting, the doctor launches right into what he wanted to discuss, rather than wasting time beating around the bush. It’s another thing Bucky really likes about the man. “Tiffany tells me you’re ready to start technology training and to start catching up with world affairs.”

“Please don’t tell me I ain’t allowed to touch a computer. I’ve been dreaming about it for months and I promise I’ll be inconsolable if you don’t let me try them out. And I’ve passed all of the skill tests for my metal arm, so I ain’t gonna damage the computer, I promise.”

He’s seen his doctors and others using computers around him, but he hasn’t been allowed near one so far. They hadn’t wanted to risk traumatizing him by overloading him with information, both regarding the technology that’s around him and the changes in the world he’d missed. He’s very excited about trying out the new technology that surrounds him and he’s been unbelievably jealous ever since he’d realized that Rogers has spent years playing with these fantastic toys already.

Dr. Bellamy lets out a short chuckle. “You won’t just be allowed to use a computer, you’ll be taking classes, studying and having to do tests. But before you start catching up with things, there are certain things I want to tell you in person so you can process the information properly.”

Bucky immediately knows this has to do with Steve. Ever since he’d stabilized enough to know where he was and who he was, he’d been asking to see Steve. He’s done the math and he knows the punk is 85 years old by now. But he’s sure the serum will keep him alive until he’s 185, so Bucky’s never been worried about that.

It’ll be very strange meeting the punk when he’s a wrinkled, tottering old man and Bucky’s only a few years older than he’d been when he’d fallen from the train, but Bucky doesn’t care. He just wants to see him again.

But Dr. Bellamy’s usually unreadable expression has a hint of concern in it. Bucky’s become very good at reading his face and that uncharacteristic concern is worrying.

Maybe Steve’s mental state has deteriorated in recent years? Bucky had hoped that the serum would save Steve from the normal rate of aging and the deteriorations that come with it, but maybe the serum hasn’t been able to do that? Maybe he doesn’t remember Bucky? Well, that’ll be awful but maybe with time, Bucky can get him to remember some things. Even if he doesn’t, then Bucky will spend the rest of his life taking care of Steve and trying to make their lives as good as possible. That’s always been his job.

Even if Steve doesn’t remember him, Bucky will remember for both of them and he’ll stay hopeful. The only time there’s no hope is when somebody’s dead, and Steve can’t be that, so that’s not a concern.

“Sergeant Barnes, we need to talk about Steve Rogers.”

*             *             *

Bucky doesn’t remember the rest of that conversation, only that the doctor’s next words had shattered his heart and destroyed any enthusiasm he’d built up over getting to live in this new century.

He can’t fault the facility’s staff for not telling him about Steve’s death earlier. They hadn’t wanted to risk that the resulting grief would interfere with the trigger desensitizing process. They’d been concerned that it might cause him to become permanently unstable and he would have been locked up for the rest of his life. He’s grateful that they’d cared enough about him to take that precaution, but that’s the only positive emotion that manages to seep through the grief that grips him like a vice.

*             *             *

He stops himself as he’s reaching up to run his hand through his military regulation cut hair again. It’s a nervous habit he’d picked up over the last few months. The gesture had lost its effectiveness somewhat after he’d asked to get his hair cut, but he can’t stop doing it.

He’s nervous, but he reminds himself for the hundredth time that there’s nothing to be nervous about and he’s being silly. This isn’t a big deal. He’s seen his own test results a dozen times and he’s watched the video tapes of the last few successful trigger testing sessions over and over.

Dr. Bellamy has always been overly cautious and even pessimistic when it comes to Bucky’s recovery, but after nearly a year of treatment, the doctor himself had declared that he sees no reason why Bucky should continue to stay at the rehabilitation facility, unless he wants to.

Well, maybe he really is ready. He knows he no longer reacts to the trigger words. He knows he’s fully caught up with this ridiculous 60 year time jump that he’d done, including the soul-shattering news that Steve died decades ago. He knows his therapists and doctors have all told him he’s ready to re-join the world.

Bucky just doesn’t know if _he_ thinks he’s ready.

The door to the meeting room opens and in comes General Osawa.

Smothering the smile that’s trying to cross his face, Bucky stands up and snaps to attention, hoping his uniform hadn’t creased while he’d been sitting on the chair.

The General smiles at him. “At ease, Sergeant.”

When the General holds out his hand, Bucky reaches out and shakes it, always a bit overwhelmed at how genuinely glad the General always is to see him. “It’s good to see you again, sir.”

“Likewise, Sergeant. I was going to say you look like you’re doing very well, but you seem nervous.”

Bucky chuckles nervously. “Yeah, I feel nervous.”

The General waves Bucky down into his seat and sits down across from him. “There’s no reason for you to be nervous. You’ve seen the test results and the trigger testing sessions, haven’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, then. You’ve had successful trigger testing sessions for three months straight, you’ve met all of your physical health markers, and Dr. Bellamy tells me all of your therapists and doctors have given you the highest marks possible.”

Bucky sighs softly. “I know. It’s not the trigger words or my health that’s making me nervous.”

The General gives him a kind smile. “Ah. You’re worried about re-integrating into society.”

“Yeah.”

“We won’t just be tossing you out of here, Sergeant. Has Dr. Bellamy explained about the transition program you’ll do?”

“Oh, yeah. That’s—that’s fine. I just can’t really grasp the idea that I’m gonna be living on my own soon.”

“You’ve lived independently in the past.”

Bucky makes a face. “I know. But that was back in the 30s. This is 2004.”

“If you feel you aren’t sufficiently up to speed with something specific, then all you have to do is ask. You know that.”

“It’s not just that. It’s been real nice having everybody here know who I am and where I’m from, so I don’t gotta explain things or they don’t think I’m weird if I’m confused about something.”

The General smiles kindly. “This is why you’re doing the transition program. You’ll be living with other vets who are transitioning back into society too, and you’ll have access to your support team. As for silly people in public, that’s something we all have to deal with.”

Bucky chuckles. “I guess busybodies are a constant part of society, huh?”

General Osawa laughs. “Welcome back to society, Sergeant.”

*             *             *

His feet are so accustomed to winding his way through the hundreds of white stone headstones spread across the green lawn of Arlington National Cemetery that he doesn’t even have to keep track of the headstones until he’s at Steve’s.

When he’s there, he glances over the headstone and the surrounding grass to see if he needs to do any tidying up. The staff usually do a very good job at keeping the grass mowed, but he likes to be thorough. He spies a small weed growing close to the stone and he crouches down and plucks it up.

The fact that the grave is empty makes no difference to him. The headstone is Steve’s, regardless of where Steve’s body currently is and Bucky wants it to stay neat and tidy. Tossing the weed away, he sits down in front of the stone and gives it a sad smile.

“Hey, pal,” he says softly. “Sorry, I know I said I’d come last week, but I was meeting with the big brass and then things got real busy.”

He runs his hand over the cold stone, tracing Steve’s name and the other black letters carved into the white marble.

_Steven Grant Rogers_

_Captain_

_US Army_

_World War II_

_July 4, 1918_

He never touches the date of his death.

“So you remember last time I was here, we talked about how I wanted to go back to active duty?”

He has no idea if Steve would approve of Bucky wanting to get back into military action but Dr. Bellamy sure isn’t happy about it. He claims Bucky is using the military as a crutch and that his progress during his transition period has stalled. In the doctor’s opinion, running off to fight a war won’t solve the problem.

Bucky doesn’t really care. He feels he’s spent the last two years doing nothing but working on getting his mind and body back to health. Maybe he’s run out of steam, or maybe his grief is finally catching up with him—like his therapists always said it would—and he just needs a break. Going back to war is something that’s familiar and he likes the idea of being told what to do, what to eat, what to wear and what to say. All of that sounds perfect right now.

“Well, I did it. Dr. B hates it, but I’m just relieved. I thought it would be a headache, but they said yes right away. Told me they’d give me the rank of ‘Captain’. That’s some coincidence, huh?”

Bucky chuckles sadly and feels a lump grow in his throat. He hadn’t believed his ears when the group of officers had told him he’d be given a promotion and become an officer, all in one go. He just wishes they’d picked any other rank than ‘Captain’. He can’t imagine hearing that word being called across a room and having to respond to it.

That was Steve’s rank. That was what everybody called him. Well, everybody except for Bucky.

“I hate it, but I don’t got a choice. Really, it’s your damn fault, ain’t it? If you were here, you’d be some big shot General by now and you’d laugh at me following in your footsteps.”

He takes a shaky breath, feeling that familiar sadness overcoming him as he remembers one of the last times he’d heard Steve laugh. They’d been eating dinner in the mess tent, the night before the train mission to capture Zola. Bucky had sat down on the bench, but had misjudged where the bench was and had ended up tumbling backwards off it.

Steve had laughed so hard that he’d been in tears and his attempts to help Bucky up had nearly brought him down to the floor too.

It had been one of those times where Bucky had pretended to be annoyed with Steve, but he hadn’t been able to keep his own smile off his face and his heart had started glowing in that familiar way, his secretly harbored love for the dumb punk growing even deeper.

He’d never imagined that would be the last time he’d ever hear Steve laugh.

Swallowing hard, he traces Steve’s name again on the cold stone. “I miss you so damn much, punk. I wish you were here with me.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please excuse any inaccuracies regarding military-happenings in this chapter.

“Going somewhere?”

Bucky glances up at the question and pauses in the middle of locking up his apartment. Well, it’s his former apartment now.

The question had been asked by his elderly neighbor, who’s smiling politely and looking curious at Bucky wearing his fatigues with his full pack slung over his shoulder.

“Yes, sir. Gonna deploy to Iraq in a few days. I’m just tidying up a few odds and ends and moving onto base until I ship out.”

“Oh! You’re going to Iraq?”

“Yes, sir. Baghdad.”

The man gets that mixture of surprise, awe and concern on his face that most people get when Bucky tells them he’s going. “How long is your tour, son?”

“18 months.”

“Oh! Well…good luck and God bless you, Captain.”

Bucky forces a polite smile. He responds to the rank automatically now, but it always, _always_ hurts. “Thank you, sir.”

*             *             *

Iraq is unbelievably hot. And there’s sand everywhere. Being in a dessert is a new experience for him and it’s not one he enjoys. But the whole point of him being out here is to stay busy and distracted, and his grief will eventually heal and his feelings for Steve will fade.

At least, that’s the theory.

Unfortunately, as the months go by, Bucky realizes that Dr. Bellamy had been right.

No matter how many extra patrols he volunteers for, no matter how many hours he helps out in the armory, no matter how enthusiastically he organizes baseball games or focuses on learning new card games from their Iraqi translators—his grief and his love for Steve stay hovering on the edge of his thoughts.

The stupid dreams aren’t helping.

He dreams about Steve nearly every night. Sometimes he’s walking somewhere with Steve and goes to sling his arm around Steve’s shoulder and that’s when Steve fades away. Or he’s come home from work and goes to hug Steve hello and when he’s close enough to touch him, Steve fades away.

All it takes is one small thought about Steve, and he’s immediately on the verge of tears from the wave of grief that always overtakes him. It’s ridiculous and it’s a safety concern when he’s outside the base, so he works very hard to compartmentalize his thoughts when he’s out on patrol.

*             *             *

His compartmentalization works well, but it has no chance on July 4, 2006.

The base is having an Independence Day celebration and Bucky had put on a smile and helped organize the festivities. But after spending an hour sitting in the mess hall and listening to singing and watching firework displays on the television, all Bucky can feel is grief.

Because July 4 might have been a cause for celebration in the past for him, but now it’s just an ugly reminder that Steve’s dead and he’ll never celebrate another birthday again.

As he sits there, he finds himself getting annoyed at his fellow soldiers, who are celebrating and cheering and having a great time.

How can anybody celebrate this day? How can they be happy when Steve isn’t here to celebrate his birthday anymore? Bucky knows he’s being ridiculous—it’s nobody’s fault that Steve happened to be born on a day that’s a national holiday. But it still makes him angry.

And then predictably, thinking of Steve immediately turns the anger into grief. Bucky manages to get himself out of the mess hall and hurries to an abandoned area in the armory where he knows nobody will find him.

He pulls out photo of Steve that he always keeps in his shirt pocket.

It’s a picture of Steve from his time at basic training, before he’d received the serum. The skinny punk is wearing a white shirt, his dog tags are hanging off his neck and he’s squinting against the glare of the sun, looking off into the distance. His hair is a disaster—as usual—and it’s flopping into his eyes. It’s an automatic reflex for Bucky to try to sweep the hair to the side, like he’s seen Steve do a million times.

Bucky stares at the black and white photo and that familiar grief settles over him like a dark cloud. The tears come and he’s sobbing, staring at Steve’s photo, his heart aching.

“Happy birthday, punk,” Bucky chokes out in a whisper, touching Steve’s face in the photo.

*             *             *

The months go by and Bucky realizes with each passing day that Dr. Bellamy had been right. He shouldn’t have jumped back into active duty and even if he had, he shouldn’t have accepted a combat tour so quickly.

He’s doing good work and he knows nobody can find fault with his performance, but his head doesn’t feel right. He realizes he needs to spend less time running away from the pain of his past and more time running towards a real solution.

What that solution is remains a mystery, but he knows he won’t find it in a dessert with a gun in his hands.

He finishes his tour and heads back home in 2007. The thought of being unemployed fills him with anxiety, so he stays in the military and takes an administrative position that keeps him in Washington, gives him something to do during the weekdays and most importantly, allows him to stay close to Arlington.

*             *             *

Watching his printed sheets slowly being spit out of the printer, Bucky  grabs one with his metal hand and turns it over. His face falls when he sees that most of the form hadn’t printed correctly. He sees today’s date ‘September 3, 2011’ at the top and a few other lines of text, but the rest of the sheet is blank. “Lieutenant? I think I annoyed the printer again.”

He hears her laugh behind him. “I’ve told you a thousand times, Major. You have to give it an enthusiastic greeting first thing on Monday morning and then it’ll cooperate for the rest of the week.”

Rolling his eyes, Bucky heads back to his desk next to Lieutenant Miller and drops into his chair, reaching for his mouse to print the forms again. “I think the damn printer just hates me.”

Lieutenant Miller lets out a laugh. “Why wouldn’t it hate you if you’re not treating it with the respect it deserves?”

That’s when the phone starts ringing. Although it’s Lieutenant Miller’s turn to answer the phone, she’s laughing too hard to answer it, so Bucky grabs it. After four years of answering the office phone, he can rattle off a professional sounding greeting while also glaring at Miller, grabbing a paper clip off his desk and throwing it at her.

“Major Barnes? This is Agent Coulson.”

Bucky struggles to suppress a sigh. Now he owes Lieutenant Miller lunch. Whoever gets the first call of the day that involves Agent Whoever having mistakenly called the DoD instead of whatever agency they’re supposed to be calling to get information about their benefits has to buy the other lunch.

It’s fine. He’s won for the last three days, so he doesn’t mind losing today.

“Good morning, Agent. Unfortunately, you’ve reached the DoD’s administrative branch. Which agency are you with, sir? I can provide you with the number you should—”

“Is this Bucky Barnes?”

Bucky frowns and the rest of his speech fades away. He doesn’t get weird fans calling him as often these days as he did after coming home from Iraq. Lieutenant Miller had politely but firmly gotten rid of the most obsessive of them over the last four years. The woman might be twice his age, but she’s ten times tougher than he’ll ever be.

If he’s got a new admirer, he needs to nip this in the bud immediately. “This is _Major_ Barnes, yes. Do you have a question regarding military benefits, sir?”

“Major, this is Agent Coulson. I’m with SHIELD. I think you don’t remember me, but it was my team that found you in the abandoned Hydra bunker back in 2003. I did your debriefings.”

The second Coulson says ‘Hydra’, everything falls into place. Bucky has fallen into a nice, slow routine over the last few years and he’s done his best to leave Hydra behind. He’s taken Steve and other good parts of his past with him into his future, but he’s followed Dr. Bellamy’s advice and he’s successfully dealt with the dark parts of his past and then left them where they belong: in the past.

His grief for Steve is something he’ll never get past and he’s accepted that as a fact, but he’s successfully rid himself of other dark parts of his past.

And now the past is on the phone with him. He battles between confusion, anxiety and a desire to hang up the phone. He really doesn’t want to know what Agent Coulson wants from him. He’s told SHIELD and the government everything he knows about Hydra when he’d been at the rehabilitation facility. He doesn’t owe anybody anything anymore.

Unfortunately, his customer service skills take over and keep his tone polite, despite his annoyance. “I remember you, sir. What can I do for you?”

“Major, I don’t know how to tell you this, but time is of the essence, so I’m just gonna come right out and say it.”

Bucky frowns. What the hell? “Okay…”

“We found Captain Rogers.”

Bucky blinks. The words make no sense for a second. Then he thinks the Agent is talking about Steve’s grave, which is a dumb thing to say. Everybody knows where Steve’s grave is. He saw it two days ago and he’s sure Steve’s headstone hasn’t just picked itself up and moved itself over. “I know where his grave is and so does anybody else who has access to the internet.”

“That’s not what I mean. We found him, Major. We found Steve Rogers.”

The meaning of those words abruptly hit him and he feels like he can’t breathe. They found Steve’s body. They finally— _finally_ found Steve’s body.

He can finally lay the punk to rest like Steve’s always deserved.

A lump grows in his throat and Bucky tightens his grip on the phone so he doesn’t drop it. He tries to say something, but his voice isn’t cooperating and he needs to clear his throat a bunch of times before he can whisper a reply.

“You—you found his body?” he whispers. “Where—where did you find it? When is he coming home?”

He sees Lieutenant Miller spin around in her chair at his words and she’s sliding her chair close to him. Bucky switches the phone to his metal hand and blindly reaches out with his right hand, groping through the air. She grabs his hand and squeezes it hard. Her grip gives him the strength to keep his tears at bay, despite the emotions running through him.

He can finally bury Steve properly.

“Major, it’s—it’s not exactly what you think.”

Frowning, Bucky struggles to keep breathing. “What—what does that mean? You said you found him.”

Jesus. Maybe they can’t get to his body? Well, that’s fine. Bucky will go out there and spend the rest of his life trying to bring Steve back home. If he dies in the attempt, then so be it.

“We did. It’s—it’s—Major, he’s alive.”

What? “Agent, you’re making no sense. Where did you find Steve’s body?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. We didn’t just find his body.”

Oh. “You found the shield and the rest of the Captain America gear?” Great. The Smithsonian can add those things to their ridiculous exhibit. Lieutenant Miller happily jostles his hand and he gives her a small smile, hoping it doesn’t look too strained. Trying to explain to people that he can’t spend more than two seconds in the exhibit without dissolving into a puddle of tears is too complicated, so he usually fakes an enthusiasm for it and pretends to appreciate it.

“No. Well, yes. But the point is that when we found Steve’s body, we realized the ice had preserved him.”

That makes Bucky smile sadly. He’ll be able to recognize the punk. He always thought all he’d ever find of Steve would be a pile of bones, so this is a very nice surprise. Oh, this is great! “That’s—that’s wonderful to hear.”

He hears Agent Coulson sigh. He sounds annoyed, which Bucky doesn’t understand. “I apologize, Major. I’m not explaining myself well. The serum helped Steve survive the crash and the ice froze his body and kept him preserved. We assumed he was dead when we found his body, but after thawing him out, we’ve discovered that the serum has actually kept him alive. He was alive while frozen, just like you were. We’ve thawed him out and he’s alive. He’s—he’s alive. The doctors expect him to make a full recovery.”

Bucky blinks. None of those words make sense. They—they found Steve’s body. That’s very good. And Coulson is saying something about Steve having been alive while frozen?

That—that—that—that means…

That means…

“Major, he’s alive. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Steve Rogers is alive. Technically, he hasn’t aged a day since he went into the ice. He’s a living, breathing 26 year old man.”

That’s when Bucky realizes he can’t breathe.

He’s holding onto Lieutenant Miller’s hand very tightly and his body is frozen. He can’t move.  He can’t breathe. He can’t think.

Steve is alive. Steve…Steve is _alive_.

“Steve—Steve is alive? Right now? He’s alive?” His voice is very faint and it doesn’t even sound like he’s talking, but he can feel his mouth moving.

“Yes. He’s in a hospital in DC, under sedation. We’re putting together a plan of how to go forward, but once we’d confirmed that he’s alive and in good health, I wanted to let you know before anybody else. We—”

And Bucky can’t hear the rest of Agent Coulson’s words because the phone drops from his numb hand.


	3. Chapter 3

The whole thing sounds insane and Bucky forces himself to stay skeptical. Maybe he’d misunderstood what Coulson was saying. Maybe they found somebody who looks like Steve. Maybe the whole thing had been a hallucination and Coulson had never called him.

But then there’s a voice in Bucky’s head pointing out that it’s entirely possible for a person with the super soldier serum to stay alive while being frozen for decades. He’s living proof that even a knock-off Hydra version of the serum can keep somebody alive through cryostasis.

He’s overwhelmed with excitement, doubt, fear and a million other contradictory emotions. Coulson wants him to come to the hospital where Steve is being cared for and Lieutenant Miller is worried enough over his mental state that she insist on driving him herself.

Bucky doesn’t remember the drive to the hospital. He just keeps having the same thoughts running through his head: Can this be true?! Can Steve actually be alive? Will he actually get Steve back?

He tries to rein in his emotions, desperately trying to remind himself that this could all be a case of mistaken identity or a case of Coulson and the medical staff being overconfident in their ability to revive Steve.

Then he’s in the hospital room and there’s Steve; lying on a hospital bed, deathly pale and hooked up to a million machines.

This can’t be real. The person on the bed looks like Steve, but this can’t be real. There’s no way that life would give him this. No way.

People are talking to Bucky but he ignores them. He can’t breathe as he stares at the man lying on the bed. Steve’s chest is rising from the breaths he’s taking, but Bucky is still convinced this is all some kind of elaborate hallucination.

He needs to touch him to be sure. He’s convinced once he touches Steve, he’ll fade away—just like he does in Bucky’s dreams. But when he reaches out a trembling hand and touches Steve’s pale hand, Steve doesn’t fade away. In fact, Steve’s skin feels warm.

He feels alive. Steve feels alive.

This…this is Steve. Right here, on this hospital bed. And Steve’s alive.

He can’t breathe. All he can do is stare at Steve, who’s warm and alive and sleeping quietly on the hospital bed, 70 years after he’d died.

After eight years of grieving, Bucky has Steve back.

*             *             *

“I think that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Major, the situation is very complex and Captain Rogers is a national icon.”

Bucky stares at the woman who’s apparently been put in charge of Steve’s re-introduction into the world of the living. She’d wanted to meet in her office, but Bucky is refusing to let Steve be out of his eyesight, so he’d put up a fuss until she’d agreed to meet with him here in the hallway and Bucky can see Steve’s sleeping body through the window in the door.

But if all of her plans involve idiotic ideas like re-creating a damn 1940s-era hospital room and trying to trick Steve into believing that no time has passed, then she might as well go right back to her office and stay there.

She’s got that eager look on her face that Bucky recognizes from the more obsessive fans he’s encountered over the years. He hates people who treat him like some kind of unique specimen, and there’s no way he’s letting this woman do the same with Steve. “I don’t give a damn what the rest of the country considers him. He’s not actually 93 years old.”

“I’m aware of that, Major, but—”

“But nothing. He ain’t ever been made out of glass, even before the serum. Nobody’s gonna treat him like a stupid kid, cause I ain’t gonna stand for it and he’s gonna figure it out anyway.”

“We’ve consulted with experts about that era and—”

Bucky laughs right in her face. “If I thought this was a good idea, then I’d be the only expert you need. That ain’t the point. When Steve wakes up, he’s gonna realize that he went from being on a plane hurtling towards a sheet of ice to being in a hospital room. He’s gonna be confused and suspicious and he’s gonna be analyzing everything that’s going on around him.”

“It would be perfectly reasonable for him to wake up in a field hospital in what appears to be 1944.”

“Sure. And are you that confident with your so-called expert that you can pull it off without a single mistake that’ll give the whole game up? I wouldn’t be 100% confident that I could re-create a hospital room from back then, and I’ve actually been in a hospital room in the 1940s. Besides—what’s the point? It ain’t 1944 so tricking him into thinking it is ain’t gonna do him any favors. He ain’t gonna trust any of you if you start off by lying to him.”

“We can’t just dump everything on him all at once, Major! You know that better than anybody.”

“Sure. But there’s a difference between keeping certain things from him and straight-out lying to him. And I ain’t gonna tolerate having anybody lie to his face.”

*             *             *

Bucky’s lived in Steve’s hospital room for the last four days. Lieutenant Miller has been bringing him clothes and other supplies and the staff have allowed him to sleep on a cot that they’d pulled in for him.

The staff have allowed him to stay in Steve’s room on two conditions: Bucky isn’t allowed to speak to Steve—since they’re not sure if Steve can understand what’s being said and they want to prevent causing him any confusion—and Bucky won’t be present when Steve is woken up.

The first condition was one he can easily live with.

The second one isn’t.

He’d yelled and ranted at everybody who’d tried to convince him it was a good idea, but finally Dr. Bellamy had come to the hospital and yanked him into somebody’s empty office to talk some sense into him.

“As far as Steve knows, you’re dead. Right?”

“So?”

“Bucky. Don’t pretend to be an idiot, it doesn’t suit you. Steve spent months grieving your death before he went into the ice. If he sees you, he’ll be confused and it’ll be impossible for him to believe what he’s seeing is real.”

And that’s actually a valid point, so Bucky begrudgingly agrees to stay away once they’ve woken Steve up.

*             *             *

Dr. Bellamy’s insistence that Bucky leave the hospital before they wake Steve turns out to be a wise precaution, because as Bucky had predicted, Steve doesn’t take the news of his unintended time-travelling well.

Steve manages to break out of the hospital room, runs of the hospital and apparently sprints through the streets of DC for a while until he gets overwhelmed with what he’s seeing and allows the hospital staff to catch up with him.

Dr. Bellamy immediately has Steve taken to the rehabilitation center where they can control Steve’s world and introduce things at a slower pace, like they’d done with Bucky. But the slower pace is where the similarities between Steve and Bucky’s situation end.

Bucky can’t remember the first few weeks of his time at the rehab center. He’d had dozens of different drugs running through his system from the cryostasis and from what Hydra had done to him and his brain had been scrambled from the electro-shock processes he’d been routinely subjected to. Once he’d medically stabilized, his brainwashing had kicked in and he’d reacted to the strangers around him the way he’d been programmed to react to strangers. It had taken a month until he’d been capable of understanding the concept of a year, never mind what date it currently was and what that meant.

Steve is starting from a completely different place. He’s mentally and physically healthy and he understands what he’s being told, but he’s reacting with suspicion due to his personality, not training. Dr. Bellamy tells Bucky that they need to use a completely different approach when it comes to Steve, and Bucky can’t compare his own journey to Steve’s. The best thing Bucky can do is to let the professionals handle the situation and keep his nose out of it.

And that doesn’t sit well with Bucky. It doesn’t matter that there’s a voice in Bucky’s head telling him this is what Steve needs and this is what’s best for him.

“It’s my job to help him,” he grouses at Dr. Bellamy on the phone after Steve’s been awake for a week.

“No. It’s your job to help him once his recovery has reached a certain point. You’re part of this process, but you can’t be part of it right now. He’s overwhelmed, he’s confused and he still doesn’t believe what we’re telling him.”

Bucky’s heart twists at those words. He hates the idea that Steve is feeling lost and scared and that Bucky’s just a few blocks away from him but he’s supposed to just leave him alone. But Dr. Bellamy isn’t letting Bucky argue, he just keeps right on saying sensible things that Bucky hates.

“The last thing he needs right now is for you to enter the picture. He won’t believe you’re really you and it’ll create a lot of stress on him. Not to mention, having Steve react negatively to you will also negatively impact you. You’re both my patients and it’s my job to take care of both of you. Right now, the best way to do that is to keep you separated.”

Bucky sighs. “I hate this.”

“I know you do. But do you trust me?”

The answer to that is obvious. “Of course, I do.”

“Then do what I tell you.”

*             *             *

A month later, he gets a text from Dr. Bellamy while he’s at work, asking him to call him. Although Dr. B tells him in the message not to call him until he’s done work, Bucky ignores that and tells Lieutenant Miller he’s taking a break and hurries outside to call the doctor.

“What happened?” Bucky demands as soon as Dr. Bellamy answers his phone.

“I told you to wait until your shift finished. It’s not that urgent and it’s important for you to—”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s slow right now anyway and Miller said she don’t mind if I take my break now. What’s going on? Is Steve okay?”

“Physically he’s fine.”

Shit. “What happened?”

“We’ve been catching him up on world events and part of that was telling him that you’re alive. He didn’t take the news the way I’d hoped he would.”

“How upset is he?”

“That’s the problem. He’s not. He’s completely shut down and he’s refusing to even entertain the idea that you being alive is the truth. Right now, he’s still giving us the ‘Captain America’ act with the polite smile while mentally telling us to jump off a cliff, but I know he’s going to lose his temper soon. I’ve presented him with photos and videos but he’s not budging.”

“Just show him some of the taped interviews you did with me. He’ll recognize your office in the background and he’ll hear that we’re talking about 21st century stuff.”

“That’s one option, but I’d need you to sign forms giving me permission to show him those videos.”

“Just email me the forms and I’ll sign ‘em and send ‘em back in five minutes.”

“Or we can just show him you, in the flesh and that’ll be even better than a video, won’t it?”

Bucky stops breathing.

*             *             *

It’s not like the movies. Bucky doesn’t hang up the phone, run to the rehab center and burst into Steve’s room to give him that long overdue hug, despite how badly he might want to.

Instead, Dr. Bellamy forces him to go back to work, finish his shift and only then drive over to the rehab center to discuss a detailed plan of how his reunification with Steve will go. Everything needs to be planned—what clothes Bucky will wear, what Bucky will say, where Bucky will sit.

“The last thing either of you need is for this to go sideways,” Dr. Bellamy points out.

Bucky can’t imagine how things could possibly go sideways. He just knows that Steve will take one look at him and then all of their grief will disappear and they’ll both feel whole again for the first time since 1944.


	4. Chapter 4

Bucky’s shaking from excitement as he seats himself in one of the two comfortable chairs in an empty therapy room. He knows there are cameras recording them, but that’s standard procedure for the facility. Dealing with traumatized soldiers who are trained killers requires stringent safety protocols.

Both chairs are positioned in a way that will allow him and Steve to face each other but to also allow both of them to have a clear eye line with the door. In case Steve gets violent, Bucky needs to get out of the room a quickly as possible and the staff will come in and subdue Steve.

Of course that won’t happen, but Dr. Bellamy is a worry-wart.

Bucky’s feet are twitching with excitement as he keeps fidgeting with his hands. Years of military training has no chance at keeping him still when he’s about to be in Steve’s company again.

He’s gonna see Steve! He’s gonna hear Steve speak. He’s gonna hear Steve laugh. He’ll never have to visit Arlington again and see that white headstone.

The door clicks open and Bucky struggles to keep breathing and to stay sitting, as per Dr. Bellamy’s strict instructions. But he makes no effort to keep the excited smile off his face.

The door swings open…and then there’s Steve.

Breathing. Alive. Looking almost exactly the same as he had when they’d been gearing up on the morning of the train mission. He hasn’t updated his hair style yet, and his hair has gotten longer since Bucky had seen him in the hospital. It’s combed it to the side as he’d always had it and Bucky feels the urge to ruffle his hair so Steve will smack his hand away and then smooth his hand through his hair to sweep it off his forehead in that familiar motion Bucky’s seen him do a million times.

But now isn’t the time to do that.

“Hey, Steve,” Bucky says, as Dr. B had told him to. He can hear his voice shaking and it’s a struggle to stay still.

He stares at Steve, waiting for him to smile, waiting for him to rush over and throw all of Dr. B’s carefully prepared plans out the window as he grabs Bucky in a hug. They’ve always done things their own way and they always will.

But as he stares at Steve, shaking and smiling so hard that his jaw is starting to ache, he realizes that something’s wrong.

Steve isn’t smiling. He’s not rushing to Bucky. In fact, he hasn’t even shut the door behind him. He’s standing in the doorway, staring at Bucky with a completely blank look on his face.

It sends a cold shudder down Bucky’s back. He’s never seen Steve without some kind of look on his face. Even in the military when he was talking to the big brass and he was supposed to keep all expressions off his face, Bucky had always seen the underlying emotions that Steve had struggled to suppress. Steve has always been a ball of emotion, determined to make his personality compensate for his small body.

So this…this isn’t the Steve Bucky knows. But he refuses to entertain the thought that Dr. B had been right and that things could go sideways. “How you doin’, pal?”

Steve keeps staring at him and doesn’t respond.

A feeling of panic starts to grow in Bucky’s stomach and he struggles not to grab Steve and shake him into snapping out of this carefully controlled blankness. He’d promised Dr. B he’d follow the script. “I’m—I’m so glad they finally let me see you. They didn’t wanna overwhelm you at first, so that’s why they waited to tell you.”

Nothing. Steve just stares at him blankly. There’s no joy. There’s no anger. There’s no sadness. There’s no excitement. There’s nothing.

“I know it’s hard to believe. But you being alive’s hard to believe too, ain’t it? The whole thing’s whacko, ain’t it?”

It actually feels weird to be using slang from the 1930s again. He’d spent weeks learning modern day slang and getting accustomed to using it. He knows Steve will be starting those lessons soon too. Dr. B had been very specific about how much old slang to mix into his language. Too much and Steve could think it was an act. Too little and Steve could think Bucky isn’t really himself.

Steve still isn’t saying anything and Bucky’s really starting to panic, so he forces himself to continue with the script. He’s completely changed his mind and he’s thanking his lucky stars for Dr. B’s careful preparations because this would be an even bigger disaster than it already is without them.

“I woke up in 2003. I spent about a year right here, in this center. Then I—”

Suddenly, Steve interrupts him. “It’s not going to work,” he says, in a perfectly flat tone with that generic Midwest accent that he’d been forced to adopt as Captain America.

Bucky stares at him. “What’s not gonna work? We can go talk somewhere else, if you want. They just—”

“I don’t know what the point of this charade is, but I’m going to figure it out and when I do, you better be prepared to suffer the consequences. Until then, I’m not going to continue participating in this baloney.”

“Steve, this ain’t baloney. I promise you, I’m really—”

And that’s when Steve’s control suddenly snaps. “You ain’t Bucky Barnes! I saw Buck die, 70 fucking years ago and how _dare_ you try to fool me by wearing his face and using his name?! It’s an insult to him and to me! I ain’t gonna fall for whatever baloney you all cooked up and all this is doing is making me hate all of you even more!”

Bucky can hear the pain in Steve’s words, and the fact that his Brooklyn accent has seeped back into his voice is evidence of how upset he is. He’s shaking with rage and that familiar spark of anger glimmers in his eyes. His hair has flopped into his eyes and Bucky watches Steve reach up and sweep his hair off his face in that unconscious gesture…but the circumstances surrounding the action aren’t at all what Bucky had hoped they’d be.

Shit. They’re definitely in sideways territory now. Thankfully, Dr. B had prepared him for this. If Steve gets violent, the staff will intervene, but Dr. B had promised to give Bucky a few chances to sort things out by himself first.

“Steve, I—”

“Don’t you _dare_ say my name! You need to get the hell out of here and stop pretending to be Bucky Barnes or I swear I’m gonna knock you straight into next year,” Steve yells, his fists balled up like he’s seconds away from punching Bucky through the wall.

Bucky takes deep, measured breaths to keep his panic and anxiety at bay. Steve is depending on him to keep it together, like he has a thousand times in the past. “I really am Bucky Barnes and I can prove it.”

Steve lets out an ugly laugh. “Yeah? Gonna show me his birth certificate?! Gonna rattle off facts you read in a book? Gonna tell me what addresses we lived at? What school we went to? Buck’s sister’s names?” he scoffs, his lips twisting into a sneer. “Spare both of us the time and go away!”

Just as Dr. B had predicted, Steve won’t accept any facts that Bucky offers from their old lives, if it’s a fact that anybody could dig up.

_“Think of a few things that only you and Steve know about. Events that you didn’t tell anybody else about and nobody else witnessed. They can be small things or big things, it doesn’t matter.”_

Bucky had immediately thought up a handful of things, but now that he has to use this knowledge, he’s suddenly very aware of the cameras that are watching them and recording what they’re saying. He hadn’t thought about it before, but there’s a reason the things he’s about to say have remained secrets between him and Steve for years. There’s a reason they’d both sworn to each other never to discuss these things again. And he really doesn’t feel like sharing these things with Dr. B and the other people who are watching the video feed for safety reasons.

Bucky glances in the direction of one of the cameras. “Turn off the video and audio recording please, Dr. B.”

Even though he can’t hear the doctor’s response, he knows what he’s saying. “It’s fine. If Steve wants to hear what I’m gonna say, he’s gonna move away from the door and it’ll stay unlocked, so if he gets violent, I can get out quick without hurting him. I ain’t stupid, but I ain’t gonna talk about things that Steve and I promised long ago never to tell another living soul when a bunch of people are listening in.”

Then he looks at Steve and raises an eyebrow. “So? You wanna hear what I have to say? You gotta move away from the door first.”

Steve glares at him. “I told you, I ain’t interested in whatever facts you dug out of a damn book.”

“These ain’t facts that anybody can dig out of anywhere except our own memories. There’s a lot of things somebody can learn about me, but there’s some things you and I promised to take to our graves, and we both did. You want proof that I’m really me? I’ll tell you about every single one ‘em, but you gotta move away from the door.”

The anger has faded a bit from Steve’s eyes and he’s no longer shaking. He’s still glaring and his hands are still clenched into fists, but he stomps over to the chair opposite Bucky’s and cautiously sits down, perching on the edge.

Bucky glances up at the cameras again. “I can’t tell if the feeds are off, but I’m hoping they are. I’m gonna be real angry and I’m gonna feel betrayed if they ain’t, Dr. B, I promise you that.”

He waits another beat, just in case. Then he looks at Steve.

He’d purposefully chosen stories that are embarrassing for him, not for Steve. He’d figured that if Steve is already in a vulnerable mood, telling him that a person who he thinks is a stranger knows intimate, embarrassing information about him probably wouldn’t go well.

Here we go.

“When we were about ten years old, I took my pa’s weekly wages outta his jacket pocket when he’d hung it up after coming home from work. Donny Pratt’s older brother was running a marbles game and I always thought I was pretty good at marbles.”

Steve shoots him an unimpressed glare. “All of that’s information you coulda gotten from anybody who grew up in my old neighborhood.”

“True. That ain’t the important part of the story. You gonna shut up and let me talk?”

Steve rolls his eyes, but he goes back to being quiet.

“So I took the $4, went down to where they were playing the game, bet all the money and then I lost all of it. I was so damn scared of what my pa would do that I ran over to your place and hid under the bed, crying. I knew your ma was at work and you were out somewhere so I had time to cry by myself. I was so scared I peed my pants and then I was even more upset. You eventually found me and I refused to come out from under the bed, so you crawled under there with me.”

He remembers Steve’s pale, anxious face as he’d squished himself under the bed and stared at Bucky. _“What happened, Buck? Why are you crying?”_

“I finally confessed that I’d lost the money and you said we’d start working right away to get the money back, but when you tried to get me out from under the bed, I refused to come out since I knew you’d be able to tell I’d wet my pants. You kept asking me why I wasn’t coming out, and I think you eventually smelled it and you knew what had happened.”

Steve’s jaw is shifting and he’s staring at Bucky. There’s a small frown on his face, like he doesn’t know what to do.

The fact that Steve isn’t interrupting and doesn’t look angry anymore is progress, so Bucky continues the story. “You asked me if I’d had an accident and then I started crying harder cause I was so embarrassed. Then you just gave me a smile and told me it’s okay. You reminded me that you’d wet your pants a lot when you were sick. I got mad and pointed out that I wasn’t sick, but you said being scared is kinda like being sick so it wasn’t my fault. That made me feel better and I finally came out from under the bed.”

There’s a ball of anxiety in Bucky’s gut and it’s not from Steve’s reaction. He’s remembering how he’d felt on that terrible day and he could have spent the rest of his life not re-living it, but if that’s what Steve needs him to do, then that’s what he’ll do.

“You helped me wash my pants and while we were waiting for them to dry, we agreed on two things. First, we both knew we’d never get $4 before my pa noticed it was missing. We’d just lie and say we had no idea where it had gone. It wasn’t a nice thing to do, but neither of us wanted me to get the beating we knew would come if I confessed. Second, you swore never to tell anybody that I’d wet my pants. Even if you were real mad at me for something, you’d never use that against me for the rest of our lives. Then we sealed the promise. And you never broke that promise. Ever.”

Bucky smiles at that. Whether or not the Steve in this century decides to resume their friendship, Bucky will always cherish the memories of Steve from the previous century. Everybody had always said Steve was the lucky one for having Bucky as a friend, but those idiots had no idea that it was Bucky who was the luckier of the two. “We had some huge fights, even ones in public when you coulda pulled that one out and used it to humiliate me and you never did. There was even one time somebody was talking about somebody wetting their pants and you were mad at me for something and I was so scared that you’d tell, but you didn’t say a word.”

“How?” Steve whispers. He’s still frowning, but his eyes look like they’re filling with hope, which is a good sign.

Steve’s random question pulls Bucky out of his reminiscing. “What?”

“How did we seal the promise? Pinky swear?”

Bucky chuckles. “Nice attempt to trick me, punk. No. Pinky swears ain’t strong enough for such promises. We had a special handshake we’d do to seal the real important promises. They were so important that we never showed anybody else our handshake.” He holds out his hand. “Want me to show you?”

Steve stares at his outstretched hand with wide eyes. He blinks a few times and then shakes his head. “Don’t—don’t touch me. Tell me another.”

Bucky drops his hand and takes a deep breath. The second story might not be as humiliating as the first one, but it has a much bigger emotional connection for him. But he can tell that he’s slowly getting through to Steve, so he’ll tell the story. “We were about twenty-two. I got drunk one night after work and when I stumbled home, I—”

The words catch in his throat before he can get them out. Damn, this is harder than he thought. “I—”

Steve is staring at him. He’s shaking a bit, but not from anger. “You what? What did you do?”

Bucky takes a deep breath. “You know what I did.”

“Tell me. If you’re really Bucky Barnes, then tell me.”

“I kissed you. Not just a little peck, I really—I really kissed you. Pinned you to the door and everything. The next morning, I was gonna pretend I didn’t remember any of it, but you sure did. You were mad as hell and you weren’t gonna let me pretend it never happened.”

Bucky feels the blush of humiliation crawl up his cheeks and he struggles to meet Steve’s eyes. He hates reliving that kiss. He’d spent the entire night at the bar listening to Roy Howard talking about how ridiculously in love he was with his fiancé and Bucky had sat there, feeling sorry for himself and his stupid heart, which was so deeply in love with Steve that he knew Roy’s love for his fiancé was nothing in comparison.

But unlike Roy, Bucky would never be able to tell the love of his life how he felt and he sure wouldn’t ever be able to brag about the situation to people in a bar. At least, not if he didn’t want to be arrested and have Steve turn his back on him.

But then he’d had a few more drinks and his brain had decided to come up with a brilliant idea. Steve would never love him the way he loved him, his brain had told him. That’s a fact. Bucky would never get to tell Steve he loved him, he’d never get to hear Steve say he loves him back, he’d never get to kiss Steve, he’d never get to hold hands with him, he’d never get to marry him.

But Bucky’s brain had pointed out that he’s done such a good job keeping his feelings hidden for so many years. He’d respected Steve and pushed his own feelings aside. The least he deserved was to have one kiss to hold onto for the rest of his life. Somehow, his brain really believed that was a brilliant idea and he’d stumbled his way home and kissed Steve.

But there’s no way Bucky’s telling Steve any of that. His stupid brain’s thought process and his ridiculous love for the punk have nothing to do with Bucky proving that he is who he says he is, and that’s the purpose of telling Steve these embarrassing stories. The only part of the story that Steve needs to hear is what Bucky had done once he’d come home from the bar and what had happened the next morning.

The kiss had been terrible. Steve had been surprised by it—which was understandable—and Bucky had slightly misaimed due to being drunk and he’d kissed half of Steve’s lips, squishing his lips against Steve’s and flattening the poor man against the door.

Finally, Steve had shoved him away and then groused about how drunk Bucky was and how he does stupid things when he’s drunk. The push had cleared Bucky’s mind a bit and he hadn’t fully understood why what he’d just done was wrong, but then Steve started fussing with him and appeared to think that Bucky was drunker than he actually was. Because he’s a coward, Bucky had grabbed that opportunity and stumbled his way to bed where he’d pretended to pass out. He had drunk quite a bit, so he’d fallen asleep quickly and thought he’d leave the entire evening behind him.

Unfortunately, his stupid brain doesn’t just come up with stupid ideas, it also has the unfortunate gift of remembering stupid ideas the next morning. Again, he doesn’t tell Steve that part. He just focuses on what had happened the next morning.

As soon as he’d woken up hungover and remembered what he’d done and had the benefit of a clear mind, he’d been able to properly assess the situation and he’d felt terrible. He’d hurt Steve and disrespected him. He’d completely deserved Steve’s anger and he’d prepared himself to lose Steve’s friendship over his stupidity. But once Steve had finished yelling at him, he’d shoved Bucky into a chair and held out his hand.

“Okay. I’m done yelling. Here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna promise each other right here and right now that you ain’t ever gonna do something like that again. We’re also gonna promise that we’ll never bring this up again. We’re gonna take this one to our graves, Barnes. Hurry up and get your hand up here so we can shake on it proper. I gotta get to work and I don’t got time to deal with your stupidity no more.”

So they’d shaken on it, sealing the promise the same way they’d sealed other such promises.

Once Bucky finishes telling Steve about their promise, he shoots Steve a small smile. “And you never broke that promise either. There were a million times you coulda brought that up to humiliate me or to make fun of me, but you never did.”

Steve is staring at him, his eyes shimmering with unshed tears and his jaw is clenched as if he’s having difficulty keeping hold of his emotions.

Now that he’s finished reliving two of the most embarrassing moments of his life, Bucky falls silent, waiting for Steve’s next move.

Abruptly, Steve holds up his hand. “Show me.” His voice is very soft.

Bucky smiles. “You gotta do it with me. It don’t make sense if we don’t do it together.”

Steve nods and Bucky lifts his hand and holds out his index finger.

Wordlessly, Steve holds out his own index finger and they hook their fingers together and do three shakes, moving in perfect unison. One, two three.

Then they unhook their fingers, flatten their hands and tap the palms of their hands together five times. One, two, three, four, five. The actions feel as familiar as if they’d last done this yesterday, not years ago.

The last step is holding out their index fingers out again, hooking them together and shaking four times. One, two, three, four.

Bucky smiles at their hands as they go through the motions. He can’t believe he gets to have this back! When he glances up at Steve, he realizes that Steve is also struggling with his emotions, but in a much bigger way.

Steve is staring at their hands, where their fingers are still hooked around each other and he looks like he’s about to pass out.

“Buck?” he whispers, looking pale and stunned.

Bucky can’t get his index finger out of the tight grip that Steve has on it—the punk still doesn’t understand his new strength—so he just curls his other fingers around Steve’s and squeezes them.

“Yeah, Stevie. It’s me. It’s really me, I promise.”

Steve blinks and a few tears roll down his cheeks. “How?” he breathes out, his voice a whisper. “How is this possible? I saw you—I saw you fall.”

“I know. I did fall off the train. It’s a very long story, but when they experimented on me in Azzano, that serum they gave me helped me survive. It’s—”

That’s when Steve bursts into tears.

Bucky manages to pry his finger out of Steve’s grip and gently touches Steve’s face with his right hand, wiping away the tears on his cheeks. He deliberately keeps his metal hand away from Steve for now, not wanting to scare or overwhelm him. “It’s okay. I promise, it’s okay.”

“This—this is crazy,” Steve chokes out.

“I know,” Bucky whispers. “I don’t know how two punk kids from Brooklyn both get a second chance at life, never mind both of us ending up 70 years in the future at the same time. It don’t make no sense, but here we are.”

“I—I missed you so much, Buck.”

A lump grows in Bucky’s throat and he presses his forehead against Steve’s. “I missed you too.”

Then Steve wraps his arms around Bucky and presses his face against Bucky’s neck, sobbing and clutching him tight.

And for the first time in nearly a decade, Bucky is holding Steve in his arms and unlike in his dreams, he’s not fading away. He’s staying solid and warm and Bucky finally allows himself to really believe that he got Steve back.


	5. Chapter 5

“You sure you wanna do this?”

Steve rolls his eyes. “You gonna ask me another hundred times before we get there, Barnes?”

“It’s just weird. I don’t know why you wanna see it. It’ll upset you.”

“I don’t think it will. But even if it does, it’s such a weird situation that I gotta do it. They’re gonna remove it soon and then I’ll have lost my only chance.”

Bucky sighs and continues leading the way through the rows of white headstones. “Fine.”

When they reach Steve’s headstone, Bucky automatically inspects it for weeds. He spies something weed-like close to the stone and it’s instinct to kneel down to pluck it up and toss it away.

He stays kneeling, staring at the white headstone which he’s visited hundreds of times. It’s surreal that Steve’s name is on the stone and he’d come here to grieve Steve, and yet—Steve is now standing right next to him. Alive.

Bucky glances up and watches Steve staring at his own headstone, keeping an eye on his facial expression. Bucky’s ready to pull him away if he gets too emotional.

Steve’s frowning, but he seems to be okay. “This is weird. Real weird.”

Bucky lets out a small laugh, but he can’t appreciate the weirdness of the situation. Being here always makes him remember the years he’d spent struggling with his grief.

Maybe Steve knows it’s hard for Bucky to be here because he crouches down next to Bucky. “You came here a lot, huh?”

Bucky stares at the familiar black lettering on the grave. What a bizarre world that he has to go from being with Steve, to mourning his death and then being with him again. “Yup. At least once a week for eight years. Oh, except when I was in Iraq.”

Steve is staring at Bucky while Bucky stares at the headstone. “Jesus. I grieved for you for a few months and that’s all I could handle. I can’t imagine going years.”

“I didn’t handle it well. I missed you every single day and the pain never got any easier. But I knew you’d want me to keep going, so I did.” Bucky can feel that he’s close to tears, the emotions of the whole thing getting to him.

Wordlessly, Steve pulls Bucky into his arms and presses Bucky’s face against his neck so he’s not looking at the stone anymore. “That’s all over now, Buck. You got me back and I ain’t going anywhere.”

Bucky clutches at him like his life depends on it, which it really does.

*             *             *

Cutting another tag off Steve’s newest additions to his modern wardrobe, Bucky inspects the sweater for any other hidden papers or plastic bits. Not finding any, he tosses the sweater into the finished pile and grabs one of the shirts to repeat the process.

“Buck?” Steve calls over from where he’s sitting at his computer, putting his new computer skills to use as he looks for an apartment for himself. He’s been living in the transition home for two months and everybody has agreed that it’s time for Steve to find his own place to live.

“Yeah?”

“I keep clicking on this and it ain’t doing nothing.”

“Did you follow Tiff’s rules?”

Steve scoffs. “Obviously. Single left click first. If that don’t do nothing, do a double click. I did both and it still ain’t doing nothing except making the word blue. I don’t want it blue. I wanna look at the pictures.”

Struggling to hide his smile—Steve hates it when Bucky thinks his difficulties with modern technology are adorable—Bucky drops the shirt and goes to the computer. He drapes his right arm across Steve’s shoulders as he leans closer to the screen. He can see right away that Steve’s been attempting to click on something that’s not a link. Bucky gently taps the screen with his metal index finger. “That ain’t a link, Rogers. You remember how to tell if it’s a link?”

Steve groans. “Shit, I forgot. It says ‘pictures’ and I just assumed that’s the link to go to the pictures.”

“How can you tell if it’s a link?”

Steve sighs. “It’s gotta be underlined or a different color, mostly blue. And the arrowhead—”

Bucky knocks his head against Steve’s with a smile. “Cursor.”

That gets him a jab in the gut from Steve’s elbow, but Steve dutifully corrects himself. “The cursor changes from the arrowhead to the little hand.”

“Yay! Two points to Steve.”

“Yay,” Steve deadpans. Then he gestures at the screen impatiently. “Make it show me pictures, Buck.”

“You make it show you pictures. But I’ll stay here until you get it.”

He can tell from the site’s setup that Steve just has to click the little picture thumbnail next to the word ‘pictures’ to see them, and sure enough, Steve quickly figures it out. When the first picture of the apartment loads, Steve smiles proudly. “There is it!”

Bucky rubs Steve’s shoulder and straightens up. “Good job.”

“Thanks for helping, jerk.”

“You’re welcome, punk.”

Steve glances at Bucky. “You staying for dinner?”

“It’s Tuesday, right?”

“Yup. Lasagna night.”

“You know I can’t say no to lasagna.”

Steve laughs. “You can’t say no to any food, Barnes. It ain’t in your nature.”

Chuckling, Bucky goes back to the bed to keep cutting off tags and folding Steve’s new clothes. As he’s working, he mulls over something he’s been thinking about lately.

He’d attended some of Steve’s therapy sessions with him where they’d talked about their grief and how they’re going to deal with their new lives. The sessions had been very productive, but it’s bothering Bucky that Steve has been an open book through the whole thing, and Bucky’s keeping a huge secret from him.

Since Steve’s death had done nothing to dull Bucky’s love for him, him being alive has made that love burn even brighter. Bucky’s gone back and forth about it for weeks and he knows he’s risking his friendship with Steve becoming strained if he admits his feelings for him, but he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life having to lie about his feelings.

Eventually, Steve will want to start dating and exploring what his options are and Bucky knows he’ll have no shortage of suitors. In the past, Steve had always avoided the issue of romantic entanglements because he’d known that people are generally stupid and dismissed him at first glance without getting to know him. But now, Bucky knows he won’t have such problems.

He’s fine with Steve dating other people and he’ll happily support Steve in whatever he wants to do. But he doesn’t want to lie to Steve about his own desires in life and he really doesn’t want to end up dating other people just to keep fooling Steve. That’s not fair to those people or to Bucky. So being honest with Steve is something he really wants to do for himself.

Of course, having come to that conclusion is easier than actually doing anything about it, but he knows it’s something he wants to do. “Steve?”

“Hmm? Buck, come look at this one. It’s got a real nice kitchen. The cupboards are made outta wood, not like those metal things we saw in that other one. It’s on the same street as the one with the red fluffy carpet.”

“That sounds good. We’ve got time to look at it before dinner, if you want. But Steve? There’s something I wanna talk to you about first.”

Steve is still staring at the computer screen, frowning in concentration. “Okay. What?”

“It’s something serious.”

Those words make Steve lift his hands from the keyboard, spin his chair around and stare at Bucky with concern. “Okay. What’s wrong?”

Bucky takes a deep breath. “You remember that time I came home drunk and I kissed you?”

Steve blinks rapidly, probably confused at the sudden change in topic. “I—I thought we weren’t gonna talk about that again.”

“Yeah, we did. And after today, we never gotta mention it again, I promise. But I wasn’t being completely honest and I wanna fix that.”

“Honest? Buck, you were so drunk that you almost fell onto the stove, thinking it was the bed.”

Bucky stares at him. “That—that was an act. Well, not all of it. I _was_ drunk, but not as drunk as I let you think I was.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “No, you were completely swacked. You wouldn’t have kissed me otherwise.”

Oh, boy. Bucky takes another deep breath. “That’s the problem. You think I didn’t mean to kiss you and I didn’t know what I was doing, but that’s…that’s what I’m trying to tell you. I knew exactly what I was doing. Well—that ain’t exactly right. I’d come up with the idea of kissing you while I was at the bar and it seemed like a brilliant idea cause I really did wanna kiss you and that’s why I did it. Obviously, I know that it wasn’t a good idea and it was very disrespectful and—”

“Wait, wait. You kissed me _on_ _purpose_?”

“I…yeah. Yeah, I did.”

Steve stares at him like Bucky’s grown a second head. “Why?”

Time to jump into this fire with both feet. Bucky just hopes Steve won’t end their friendship over this. “Because…because I’m in love with you. I have been for a very long time.”

Steve’s face suddenly becomes blank and he stares at Bucky, frozen.

Bucky uses Steve’s shock to his advantage and decides to add as much explanation as possible before Steve starts yelling or throws him out of his room. “I always knew you didn’t feel the same way and that’s fine. I just love being around you and if being friends with you is all I’ll ever get, then I’ll die a happy man. But I was sitting at the bar that night, listening to stupid Roy Howard talking about his fiancé and I got real upset and felt sorry for himself.”

Steve is still staring at him with that blank expression on his face that he’d had when he’d thought Bucky wasn’t really himself. Bucky hopes this won’t end with Steve thinking he’s some imposter robot. But no matter what Steve will think at the end, Bucky wants to say his piece before things blow up.

“I was sad that I’d never get to tell you I loved you or kiss you. I was being a sad sack and when my drunk brain told me that I deserved to get at least one kiss from you before I went back to suffering in silence, it sounded like a great idea. It never occurred to me that kissing you wouldn’t be ‘me getting a kiss from you’ but would be ‘me hurting you’ and ‘me disrespecting you’. As soon as I did it and you shoved me away, I realized it was a bad move but I was too embarrassed to talk about it right then. The next morning, you yelled at me like you should’ve and then you did me the biggest favor you’ve ever done and promised to leave the whole thing in the past.”

Bucky gives Steve a small smile. “I’m real grateful about that. I woulda hated myself if I let such a stupid little decision ruin our friendship.”

Steve’s still staring at him blankly.

It’s starting to scare Bucky, so he does the only thing he can think of and keeps right on talking. “I want you to know that nothing’s gotta change between us, unless you ain’t okay with any of this. I understand if it makes you feel weird, but I promise that I’m real good at keeping my love to myself. I don’t—”

“How long?”

Bucky blinks at the sudden question. “How long what?”

“How long have you been in love with me?” Steve demands.

“Oh, Jesus. I don’t remember an exact date. Definitely from the time we were teenagers. So by now, it’s been a few years.”

“And you…and you…” Then Steve’s voice trails off.

Bucky stares at him, but Steve seems to be struggling to find the words to say. Out of respect to Steve and the shock of the information Bucky had just dumped on him, he stays quiet and waits for Steve to find the words he needs.

“And you…you want—in a perfect world where I loved you back…you’d want…what would you want?”

“What—what would I want? I don’t understand what you’re asking.”

“If I loved you back, you’d—you’d want—you’d wanna go steady with me?”

Bucky snorts and smiles softly. “Of course, I would. That would be a dream come true.”

“Even today?” Steve demands. “Even right now? Nothing’s changed for you?”

“No, nothing. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. But like I said: nothing’s gotta change between us. I promise I ain’t ever gonna kiss you or make you uncomfortable ever ag—”

Then to his surprise, Steve bursts out laughing. He’s laughing so hard that he’s almost falling off his chair.

Bucky tolerates it for a few seconds, but when Steve doesn’t stop, he starts to get annoyed. “Okay, that’s enough of that, Rogers. You made your point. You think I’m an idiot with a stupid heart and I made a fool outta myself. I know all that but I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t disrespect me by laughing about this.”

He sees Steve making an effort to get himself under control. It takes him a while, but eventually, he stops laughing. “Sorry, Buck. I didn’t—I wasn’t laughing at you. I was laughing at myself.”

“What?”

“I was laughing at myself because we’re both idiots.”

Bucky frowns. “I ain’t ever called you an idiot.”

“I know. I’m calling myself one cause if we’d just talked about this ten years ago, it woulda saved us both a lot of heartache.”

Bucky feels like Steve is having a completely different conversation. “What are you talking about?”

Steve is smiling at him sadly. “You remember how mad I was the next morning?”

“Yeah…of course you were. I’d—”

“I wasn’t mad cause of what you did. I was mad cause I thought you didn’t mean it.”

Bucky blinks. That sounds…that sounds like Steve is saying…But he needs to verify. “Why—why would it make you mad if you thought I didn’t mean it?”

“Cause I was in love with you. Still am.”

Bucky gapes at him. “What?”

“I’d loved for you a long time by that point and I thought the only place I’d ever get to kiss you was in my dreams, but then you decided to make it a reality but in the worst possible way. The only thing worse than never kissing you is having you accidentally kiss me and then say you regretted it.”

As the meaning of Steve’s words sink in, Bucky’s heart starts trying to fly out of his chest. But a second later, he realizes that Steve is probably kidding and he feels like somebody drenched him in cold water. “This ain’t funny, Rogers. I was being serious and I’m real nervous about telling you all this and now you’re making fun of me.”

Steve gapes at him. “Buck, I ain’t making fun of you. I’m being dead serious. I’ve been in love with you for years. You have no idea how many times I dreamed about that stupid kiss but in my dream you were sober and I took the whole thing in a different direction. How could anybody not be in love with you, stupid?”

That hope and excitement lights up in Bucky’s gut again and he stares at Steve. “So…so you still feel the same way?”

“Of course, I do.” Steve is smiling softly, his eyes shining. “And you do too. So the only other question is if you wanna go steady with me, Bucky Barnes. Cause I sure wanna go steady with you.”

Bucky can barely breathe. “You mean it? You really, really mean it?”

Steve gets out of his chair and reaches for Bucky’s hands, squeezing them tightly—his real one and the metal one. “Yeah. I really, really mean it.” Steve quirks an eyebrow at him. “So, how about it? You wanna go steady with me?”

Bucky grins and his heart starts racing in his chest again. “Yeah. Yeah, I really do.”

Pulling Bucky closer, Steve presses their foreheads together and smiles at him, glowing with happiness. “That’ll make me the happiest fella on earth.”

“That’s impossible, cause I’m already the happiest fella on earth. You gotta get in line.”

Steve laughs. “Instead of wisecracking at me, you wanna see if you can redo that kiss you tried giving me?”

Bucky grins. “I won’t just redo it, I’ll blow that one right outta the water.” Before he can let his nerves get hold of him, Bucky tilts his head and gently presses his lips against Steve’s.

But this time, Steve’s lips eagerly press back and Steve’s arms wind themselves around Bucky’s waist to pull him closer. Steve tilts his head and their lips slot together and it feels amazing. His entire world is full of just Steve and his scent and his warm lips as they kiss and kiss and kiss. It feels both exciting and comfortable at the same time and Bucky’s never experienced anything like this before.

When they finally break apart, Steve keeps his arms around Bucky’s waist and presses their foreheads together, breathing in each other’s air. They stay like that for a while, feeling comfortable and happy.

Then Bucky catches sight of Steve’s computer out of the corner of his eye. “Steve?”

“Hmm?”

“I know we just started going steady about 2 minutes ago and this might be moving too fast, but since we’re both in our 90s and we got a lot of catching up to do, I think it wouldn’t be weird if I point out that I got a kitchen with wooden cupboards.”

“Yeah?”

“Uh huh.”

“Do you also have a bed?”

“Yup.”

“Is it comfortable?”

Bucky smiles. “Yeah, but it’s a bit lonely right now. I’m hoping you can fix that.”

Steve grins. “I can definitely fix that,” he mumbles against Bucky’s lips and starts kissing him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We’ve reached the end of another adventure! Thank you for your support. If you enjoyed the story, it would mean the world to me if you took the time to let me know.


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